I'm sorry I'm not smart enough to see the huge breakthrough in this. I guess it's the first cobble in the road, but it doesn't mean a whole bunch to me. Just sounds like they're doing their job in Sciencetown._________________Werd.

I'm sorry I'm not smart enough to see the huge breakthrough in this. I guess it's the first cobble in the road, but it doesn't mean a whole bunch to me. Just sounds like they're doing their job in Sciencetown.

Calling this a cobblestone is like calling the Pyramids at Giza a minor architetural achievement._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

I'm sorry I'm not smart enough to see the huge breakthrough in this. I guess it's the first cobble in the road, but it doesn't mean a whole bunch to me. Just sounds like they're doing their job in Sciencetown.

Are you kidding me with this? I'm surprised you're smart enough to wipe your own ass.

""It has much higher information capacity and it cannot be eavesdropped on. The transmission of quantum information can be made unconditionally secure"

which just sounds naive. People are always doing stuff that can't be done, especially when it comes to sensitive areas like secure information transmission.

It takes a lot of reading about quantum physics to understand this, but it boils down to the theory of entanglement. In layman's terms, entanglement is where you take two atoms that interact, and then separate them. Anything to do to one atom (move it left for instance) is mirrored instantly on the other atom (it moves right) instantaneously - no speed of light restrictions required. This is why it is unconditionally secure (in a perfect world) because without an entangled atom to observe - there is no information medium carrying the message. In all cases where someone intercepts information in the modern world, they are somehow interacting with the transmission medium. Entanglement is at the core of teleportation experimentation.

There is no spoon to quote pop culture.

Now in reality you are quite correct, you might spy in the room where the message is decoded, the entanglement might have multiple atoms, and you steal one, etc, etc. But the theory is also correct, only at each end of the quantum entanglement would the information be apparent, nowhere else.

Welcome to the quantum world - it's fascinating, counter intuitive and downright weird.

I should mention on the cutting edge of quantum science is the thought that wrapped up in the infinitesimal small strings that make up the higher dimensions (5th through 11th), it's suspected that there is a cosmic checksum system or carrier wave that transmits the information between entangled atoms that keeps everything working - however is only theoretical and has never been experimentally proven, unlike the transmission of the thousands of atoms in this experiment. If you could talk or intercept those "protected" channels... well that's starting to dip into the realm of hardcore science fiction now.

I recommend the book Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics which is easy to read, well written, and well researched. If you are like me, you will get about 1/2 way through it and say to yourself "holy shit - there IS no spoon".

Darqcyde wrote:

Bunnubis! wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not smart enough to see the huge breakthrough in this. I guess it's the first cobble in the road, but it doesn't mean a whole bunch to me. Just sounds like they're doing their job in Sciencetown.

Calling this a cobblestone is like calling the Pyramids at Giza a minor architectural achievement.

I gotta agree with Darqcyde here.

Even if this is cost prohibitive, it allows the circumvention of the speed of light limitations on communication and computing. How about a computer that never has to take time to come up with a complicated answer?

Because of quantum information density, if this experiment is repeatable, you could get supercomputers the size of your fingernail that could contain all of the information mankind has collected in written history.

If it's in any way scalable, the transmission of hazardous materials all of a sudden got MUCH safer because the materials don't exist between the transmission points.

While Feit was much more succinct and to the point in his reply (bravo Feit), I understand that the world needs both the hard scientist types and those who prefer the arts and leave science to those in "Sciencetown" (gotta love THAT quote), still this could change your life in thousands of ways and you should be better informed.

If repeatable, sustainable, scalable, and cost effective, this could have the same ramifications to your personal life as fast computing has had to our world in the last 50 years (cell phones, computer software like, um, bulletin boards, the Internet, the computer you are using, the schools you attend, the ATM you use, the digital music you listen to, etc).

I love quantum physics in theory, but I'm just not that well versed on it. Someday..._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

If it's in any way scalable, the transmission of hazardous materials all of a sudden got MUCH safer because the materials don't exist between the transmission points.

While Feit was much more succinct and to the point in his reply (bravo Feit), I understand that the world needs both the hard scientist types and those who prefer the arts and leave science to those in "Sciencetown" (gotta love THAT quote), still this could change your life in thousands of ways and you should be better informed.

If repeatable, sustainable, scalable, and cost effective, this could have the same ramifications to your personal life as fast computing has had to our world in the last 50 years (cell phones, computer software like, um, bulletin boards, the Internet, the computer you are using, the schools you attend, the ATM you use, the digital music you listen to, etc).

Stay tuned...

I think you missed humanitarian and medical potential: water transportation and non-invasive tumor removal._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

...This is why it is unconditionally secure (in a perfect world) because without an entangled atom to observe - there is no information medium carrying the message. In all cases where someone intercepts information in the modern world, they are somehow interacting with the transmission medium...

Thanks very much for the explanation, but as you guessed my point was more to the effect that - if people really really want to - I'm sure some way can be found. Maybe there's side effects you can measure, maybe you can't do it over large distances without the aid of some other form of information transfer, maybe the machines used for 'sending' and 'receiving' create some sort of fluctuation in whatever, a magnetic field or just the power current or something.
When you're working with a barely understood phenomenon it's a bit early to be sure.

And then there's the staggering relaying of scientific boundaries. Here's a guy working hard every day to do something held to be impossible for years and then when he gets there turns right around and states the theoretical impossibility of something else: after breaking through the boundaries of science he stops and neatly rebuilds them around the new bit he found.

Quote:

Welcome to the quantum world - it's fascinating, counter intuitive and downright weird.

Thanks but ehm... I did study physics for a while you know
Nevertheless I graciously accept your invitation into the wonderful world of quantum dynamics. Where can I hang my coat?

Darqcyde wrote:

Bunnubis! wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not smart enough to see the huge breakthrough in this. I guess it's the first cobble in the road, but it doesn't mean a whole bunch to me. Just sounds like they're doing their job in Sciencetown.

Calling this a cobblestone is like calling the Pyramids at Giza a minor architectural achievement.

Is it as groundbreaking as cold fusion?
Well, "If repeatable, sustainable, scalable, and cost effective"

But seriously, thanks for the info & reference Timm! I've been following this since they started messing with single atoms and I love the idea that somewhere, someone is actually sitting at a desk working at actual teleportation. I'm just sceptical about its practical use anywhere in the near future and our ability to predict it. When people started thinking about computers they expected way different uses than uhm... forumming and reading webcomics. Lots of fantastic uses were imagined that turned out to be redundant long before we had the technology and _nobody_ imagined the big community based projects like wikipedia.

Do we really need all this sci-fi PR when talking about science? Or am I just being a killjoy now?

I think it will be used more as a communication system than physically moving macroscopic objects around. Entangle a few hundred atoms, split them up, leaving a set on Earth and another on a ship going far away. Interact with atoms on the ship, and you can "read" that on Earth, and use it to transmit data.
This has come a long way in the last decade, too. I remember watching Discovery Channel shows about them doing it with just protons.

It's stuff like this that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside._________________Knowledge is Power.
Power Corrupts.
Study.
Be Evil.